Catholic Priest Bemoans Health Official’s “public dehumanization” of Zimbabwean Patient

“Instead of shaping narratives of inclusion, of social cohesion, of care, they are in fact, shaping narratives that speak into the very opposite of all of those values. It is more than xenophobic; it’s dehumanizing,” Fr. Pearson said.

Dr Ramathuba’s remarks have been met with mixed reactions in South Africa and beyond, with some politicians reportedly expressing their supporting for her, and others calling for sanctions against her.

In the September 9 interview, the CPLO Director who has previously ministered among refugees, migrants, and displaced persons said that remarks by the MEC for Health in Limpopo have exposed a “dangerous tendency” in which political narratives “attempts to shift the blame for our own governance failures onto vulnerable mobile communities.”

“Vulnerable groups in our country continue to carry the burden of being scapegoated,” Fr. Pearson said.

He added, “Across the world, politicians and elected officials of all stripes seem to be vying with each other to make the most outrageous, offensive, dismissive and exclusionary statements about migrants and refugees.”

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“There is too easy a conflation saying what is not available medically, or where there are shortfalls medically, is the result of it being abused by people who have no right or no claim to those resources,” the South African Priest said. 

“But we know that the bigger reason that there are no resources available, the bigger reason that people are not able to access health care, is that the health care system itself is riddled with corruption; it's riddled with ineptitude in its governance; it's riddled with all sorts of unequal kind of practices,” he added.

The member of the Santa Marta Group further said, “It's too easy to scapegoat foreign nationals who are deemed to be here illegally and say they are the cause, when in fact probably the bigger cause lies in things over which hospital authorities and the MEC and others have control.”

“This becomes a very convenient way of scapegoating, a very convenient way of deflecting blame,” Fr. Pearson further said, adding, “Not only are we dehumanizing people in encouraging a narrative of anti-others, but we are also deflecting the places where the analysis of our failing health care system should in fact be brought to bear.”

He continued, “There's an absolute right, constitutionally guaranteed, that basic health services are available to everybody…we are talking about constitutionally guaranteed rights. We need to begin to correct a narrative that seeks to falsify the position that pertains at the moment.”